Freedomizing

My first Ironman, to say I slept well would be a misstatement, if I were to guess, I slept about 5 hours of restless sleep. Woke up about 4:30 AM to head out the door, I stayed at my sister-in-law's house and, therefore, didn't want to wake anyone, so I slipped out without making a noise. I got into the car and started driving to Boulder, Colorado. On my way in I was wishing I had left my home where I would have prepared a "bullet coffee" butter and coconut oil blended in a cup of joe. But I drove on, heading to parking that was described as sparse at best. I'd swing into a McDonald's order a coffee ask for some butter, and get a sausage sandwich and get rid of the bread that was the plan. Miles went by, no McDonald's ok, any place ... even a gas station. Distracted I took a call from a friend and continued to drive, next thing I know I'm at the parking garage, having eaten, or drank nothing. Oh well, they will have coffee and "energy" bars...

I came out of a 90-minute hot yoga class the other day. Drying off and cleaning my mat a gentleman stopped me and said, "I don't know how you do it." My response was that of some surprise, but I responded politely "Well I've done one Ironman and never was there a straight 90 minutes as hard as that class just was."  A lady piped in and said, "I did that class once and came out limping, after a chiropractor visit, I was told that Hot Yoga is terrible for you and you can over stretch, pretty much just plain torture!" I promptly agreed and discussed the failure study of athletes using saunas*, and compared the Hot Yoga to it. The lady was disturbed that I would want to put myself through self-torture, and the gentleman was simply impressed. It was an interesting conversation, I had to reflect afterwards on my Ironman to think about whether or not I was exaggerating, and the more I think about it, it was far from an exaggeration. While of course the ...

It took wilderness and a beautiful fire to stir up the discussion. But it happened, and it is going to either make me or cost me $100! The concept is the same as in the Matrix's "Bowl full of snot" everything the body needs in one consistent meal. Our friend Jim was way into the concept based on backpacking and not having to eat "mountain men" and I was interested mainly because of time and nutrition simplicity. I have always thought how nice it would be if you were running late for a meeting; knew your day was going to be long or just simply didn't feel like making an adequately prepared balanced meal that you could just grab something off the shelf and scarf it down good enough for whatever meal, or amount of time depending on how much you eat. Mr Nutrition piped into the conversation, explaining based on an excel document he has created what is now famously called "Steveakin" effectively the necessary macro nutrient bland bread-like subst...

If you were to google income and physical activity the overwhelming response is something along the line of “poor people don’t exercise” and they are right, however the concept is completely backwards, same as the concept that guns kill people, and forks are what make people fat. It isn’t that poor people don’t exercise it is that because people don’t exercise that they are poor. If you were to never eat you would never get fat, thus if you are to never exercise you are not going to succeed, if you do exercise you will succeed, statistics prove it! So instead of looking at it from the perspective of “those poor, poor people, or poor me poor person is doomed to be fat and die of all sorts of hanus hear diseases, economic loss etc.” lets reverse the roll, if you are poor, stop being poor by exercising, and if you are not successful become successful by exercising! There is a direct correlation to economic status and how fat and out of shape you are, so change the ...

Ironman – Swim Straight Don’t be such a damn fool! Look in the Mirror! Have you ever heard this before? I certainly have, and I consider the comment to be abusive abrasive and simply rude, thus I brush it off and think to myself, what a F@#k that guy is! Then all of a sudden I am in line to start the swim of an Ironman, my first Ironman event. I’m a hell of a swimmer; I know that I am, and, therefore, I was going to line up with the 1hr 20-minute group, I knew this the night before, weeks before. Now here I sit with the 1:20’s and my courage gets the best of me, and I line up with the 1:15’s. There are not a hell of a lot of people in front of me, and there is a hell of a lot of people behind me! Who do I think I am?! The gun goes off, and we are off, swimming away, in tight formation thus a few elbows, knees, feet, heads all hitting grinding and overall chaos. After the first about 100 yards, people begin to space. What the hell, why do I keep hitting people's heels, they are...

Beware of the late term windfalls! We work and work to join “the club” as I have heard it called, the executive club that is, the folks that meet about meetings the folks that talk about talking, that take action about taking action, and that make loads more than the rest of us. Generally, we work our entire lives trying to get into the club and for most of us it never happens, and, believe it or not, that is a benefit! Let me explain. If you are on the executive track and in the club in your late 30’s early 40’s, then the executive track pays dividends. However if you are destined to become the high paid executive in your late 50’s, then your life might just get ruined. Let me explain. If you make the average wage of the American worker, 46K (according to ssa.gov), then your savings rate to replace that income is recommended to be about 10% from when you start working until the day you retire. Put into a simple calculator, running at a 6% annual return and inflation (includin...